GTA 5 is only honest in its most drunken moments

It’s not a stretch to say that Rockstar makes some of the most lavish worlds in gaming. In Grand Theft Auto, if there’s an email system for the player, that means that there’s an internet. If a player can access their bank from that internet, then that means that there’s probably a wider financial system, so the player should be able to invest in the stock market. And of course, if there’s a stock market, then there should also a ‘real’ company behind every ticker symbol, complete with a fictional biography. The Grand Theft Auto series fills its world with rabbit holes of detail most teams wouldn’t even dare to touch. This detail brings GTA 5’s extraordinary world to life, then, but it’s the story that dictates the tone of each GTA. And this game has a wide tonal range. GTA 5 inconsistently swings from domestic drama, to slapstick comedy, to grim criticism of American foreign policy, within minutes. Everyone and everything is a target for ridicule—yet it neither shows the light hand to make the occasionally delicate subjects it tackles truly hit home, or the consistency to become an effective satire. Its protagonists, as a reflection of the game’s fictional LA setting, put on a facade so they never have to discuss how they’re really feeling, and Rockstar is reluctant to show you anything deeper than that as they interact. To find what these characters truly believe about themselves and each other, you need to dig deeper. You need… [Read full story]